How do I seperate these? HELP ME!

I have these huge dahlias that I picked up from my Grandma's lastnight. She has never seperated them cuz she didn't know how and didn't want to kill them. I will attach pictures to show you how huge these things are. Thanks.

Erin

another picture

picture 3

picture 4

I would start with the clump in pic 2 as it looks pretty straight forward. I can't tell if you can see the eyes yet or not. I cut the old stalk from this years plantinto quarters with a sharp knife and gently jiggle the clump apart as it's easier to work with smaller clumps. Once you've done that you should be able to separate individual tubers from the stalk. If the eyes aren't visible try to cut each tuber so there is still a piece of stalk with it as sometimes the eyes are right at the junction with the old stalk. If you actually break the neck of a tuber (been there/done that) I wouldn't bother keeping it.

For the "Essence of Gnarly" clumps, you may have to 'sacrifice' a tuber or two to get them separated. I always try to cut into an old tuber if I have to. We have pics somewhere in the forum on dividing. I'll look for a link.

Of coursely it was in our Resources Sticky. Here is our beluved Pooch's demo http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/662385/

I never can find the eyes myself, what I do is try to give each tuber I save a bit of a stalk base. In the case where there are a LOT of crowded tubers and I can't reasonably give each tuber a decent piece of the stalk base, I just break up the clump into sections of multiple tubers. Often I get a better picture when this dividing is done, and I can further subdivide some of them. I use a fruit secateur, one of the pointier ones like here:

http://www.forestrytools.com.au/index.php?id=19

These massive piles of tubers have like 5 different stalks coming out of them, and each stalk has a bunch of tubers coming off of it. I think thats why I am a bit baffled at the moment.

Erin

Not an easy task, if you could figure out what stalks are connected to what sections of tubers, take the cutting tool of choice and attack it from the top, from where the stalks are, leaving a stalk attached to each divided section. I usually take a stab with the secateur, say on top in between the stalks, often the tubers kind of cleave in a potato-like way. Having 5 stalks is a good thing as you should have lots of eyes to go around.

So, if I can seperate all of the tubers that have a stalk that would be fine? Some of them I can easily wiggle free from the massive clump. I just didn't know if that was alright.

Erin =)

Start wiggling.

lol. Thanks ;)

Let us know when you've separated them and how well you did.

We need an update as to how the dahlia separating worked out.

I'm looking at a couple of clumps like these and wondering the same thing the original poster was, "Where do I start?" Answer: Somewhere.

Same here. We've been digging all morning with another big bed to get done hopefully on Saturday. Some break apart so easily and others are "big mamas".